Songbook: The Selected Poems of Umberto Saba
Transcript
Songbook: The Selected Poems of Umberto Saba
Copyrighted Material Songbook: The Selected Poems of Umberto Saba U M B E RTO SA BA TRANSLATED BY GEORGE HOCHFIELD AND LEONARD NATHAN INTRODUCTION, NOTES, AND COMMENTARY BY GEORGE HOCHFIELD YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS E NEW HAVEN & LONDON A M A RG E L LO S WORLD REPUBLIC OF LETTERS BOOK Copyrighted Material The Margellos World Republic of Letters is dedicated to making literary works from around the globe available in English through translation. It brings to the English-speaking world the work of leading poets, novelists, essayists, philosophers, and playwrights from Europe, Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, to stimulate international discourse and creative exchange. Published with assistance from the Mary Cady Tew Memorial Fund. Copyright ∫ 2008 by George Hochfield. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers. Selections from Poesie Scelte di Umberto Saba ∫ 2002 Arnoldo Mondadori Editore SpA, Milano, are reprinted with permission from the publisher. Set in Electra type by Keystone Typesetting, Inc. Printed in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Saba, Umberto, 1883–1957. [Selections. English. 2008] Songbook : the selected poems of Umberto Saba / translated by George Hochfield and Leonard Nathan ; introduction, notes, and commentary by George Hochfield. p. cm. — (A Margellos world republic of letters book) isbn 978-0-300-13603-6 (clothbound : alk. paper) I. Hochfield, George. II. Nathan, Leonard, 1924– III. Title. pq4841.a18a2 2008 808.8—dc22 2008017685 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper). 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Copyrighted Material For Leonard Nathan 1924–2007 To us will be vouchsafed a poor vision of things as they almost are: a plumed egret westering like an omen but only of itself alone. Or if we are very lucky, a few nacreous moments prised open like the shell of an oyster or the sudden silver spasm of a trout. —from ‘‘Fishing,’’ Restarting the World Copyrighted Material CONTENTS Introduction xxi Volume Primo (Volume One), 1900–1920 Poesie dell’adolescenza e giovanili (Poems of Adolescence and Youth), 1900–1907 Ammonizione (The Admonition) 4 La casa della mia nutrice (My Wet Nurse’s House) 6 Sonetto di primavera (Spring Sonnet) 8 Glauco (Glauco) 10 A mamma (To Mamma) 12 Meditazione (Meditation) 20 Il sogno di un coscritto (The Conscript’s Dream) 24 Versi militari (Military Verses), Salerno, 12th Infantry, 1908 Durante una marcia (During a March) 30 1. Because the soldier who doesn’t go to war 31 2. And yet I don’t dislike this hard 33 3. And if I sometimes suffer from this hard 35 6. And I will tell you, when the days 37 7. Lost, swallowed in a darkness that is 39 Ordine sparso (Single File) 40 1. When I crouch, firing, deep in the woods, 41 2. The animals, for whom it’s home, and bed, 43 vii Copyrighted Material viii Contents Bersaglio (The Target) 44 Dopo il silenzio (After Taps) 46 Consolazione (Consolation) 48 Scherzo (The Joke) 50 Di ronda alla spiaggia (Guard Duty on the Beach) 52 Casa e campagna (House and Countryside), 1909–1910 L’arboscello (The Sapling) 56 A mia moglie (To My Wife) 58 L’insonnia in una notte d’estate (Insomnia on a Summer Night) 66 La capra (The Goat) 70 A mia figlia (To My Daughter) 72 Trieste e una donna (Trieste and a Woman), 1910–1912 L’autunno (Autumn) 76 Il torrente (The Stream) 78 Trieste (Trieste) 82 Verso casa (Toward Home) 84 Città vecchia (Old Town) 86 L’appassionata (The Passionate Woman) 88 La bugiarda (The Liar) 90 La fanciulla (The Girl) 94 Dopo la tristezza (After Sadness) 96 Tre vie (Three Streets) 98 L’ora nostra (Our Hour) 102 Il giovanetto (The Youth) 104 Il poeta (The Poet) 106 Il pomeriggio (The Afternoon) 108 Il bel pensiero (The Beautiful Thought) 110 La moglie (The Wife) 112 La malinconia amorosa (The Pathos of Love) 116 Copyrighted Material Contents ix Il fanciullo appassionato (The Boy Enthralled) 120 Dopo una passeggiata (After a Walk) 124 Più soli (Most Alone) 126 Nuovi versi alla Lina (New Poems to Lina) 128 1. A woman! And to forget her again 129 3. If after labored nights I rise 131 7. For how many nights have I lain without sleep 133 9. I dreamed, and I will tell you the memory 135 12. Whom does she harm, the poor chanteuse? 137 14. I say: ‘‘I’m rotten . . . ,’’ and you: ‘‘If you really love me, 139 All’anima mia (To My Soul) 140 L’ultima tenerezza (The Ultimate Tenderness) 142 La solitudine (Solitude) 148 La serena disperazione (Serene Despair), 1913–1915 Il garzone con la carriola (The Shop-boy with the Wheelbarrow) 152 Un ricordo (A Memory) 154 La ritirata in Piazza Aldrovandi a Bologna (Sounding the Retreat in Piazza Aldrovandi in Bologna) 156 Guido (Guido) 158 Caffè Tergeste (Caffè Tergeste) 164 Il ciabattino (The Cobbler) 166 De profundis (De Profundis) 168 Poesie scritte durante la guerra (Poems Written in Wartime) La stazione (The Station) 172 Milano 1917 (Milan 1917) 174 Sognavo, al suol prostrato... (Prostrate on the Ground, I Dreamed . . .) 176 Partenza d’aeroplani (Airplanes Taking Off ) 178 Copyrighted Material x Contents Tre poesie fuori luogo (Three Poems Out of Place) L’egoista (The Egoist) 182 Cose leggere e vaganti (Light and Airy Things), 1920 Favoletta alla mia bambina (A Bedtime Story for My Baby Daughter) 186 Favoletta (Nursery Rhyme) 188 Fanciulli al bagno (Boys on the Beach) 190 Paolina (Paolina) 192 L’ultimo amore (The Last Love) 196 Dopo un mese (After a Month) 198 Mezzogiorno d’inverno (Winter Noon) 200 La schiava (The Slave) 202 Forse un giorno diranno (Perhaps One Day They Will Say) 204 Commiato (Envoi) 206 L’amorosa spina (The Loving Thorn), 1920 1. At the bottom of my thoughts in these 211 4. I feel, my girl, I feel that for me, who loves 213 8. Let me kneel before you in adoration, 215 12. I know a more than human sweetness 217 In riva al mare (By the Sea) 218 Volume Secondo (Volume Two), 1921–1932 Preludio e canzonette (Prelude and Canzonettas), 1922–1923 Il canto di un mattino (The Morning Song) 224 Canzonetta 1 La malinconia (Melancholy) 228 Canzonetta 6 Chiaretta in villeggiatura (Chiaretta on Vacation) 232 Copyrighted Material Contents xi Canzonetta 8 L’incisore (The Engraver) Canzonetta 9 Chiaretta 244 Finale (Finale) 250 238 Autobiografia (Autobiography), 1924 1. My unhappy youth was spent with 255 2. Alone, at night, in her deserted bed, 257 3. My father had been ‘‘the assassin’’ to me 259 4. My childhood was poor and blessed 261 5. But my guardian angel flew away, 263 6. At that time I had a friend; I wrote 265 7. It was already time to love; the dawn 267 8. So I dreamed, and in the sky the evening 269 9. To have an irresistible thought night and day, 271 10. I was living then in Florence, and once 273 11. It was among my soldiers that I found myself. 275 12. And I could love again, and it was Lina 277 13. I was with her when my book came out, 279 14. With the war I was an infantryman again. 281 15. A curious antiquarian shop 283 I prigioni (The Prisoners), 1924 Il beato (The Blessed One) 286 Fanciulle (Girls), 1925 1. Standing naked, hands behind 291 3. She who approaches me has 293 5. This is the woman who used to sew 295 11. How could she be left out of the final 297 12. I don’t believe in woman. I mean 299 Copyrighted Material xii Contents Cuor morituro (The Dying Heart), 1925–1930 Sonetto di paradiso (Sonnet on Paradise) 302 La vetrina (The Glass Cabinet) 304 La brama (Desire) 310 Il borgo (The Suburb) 320 Girotondo (Ring around the Roses) 328 Eros (Eros) 332 Preghiera per una fanciulla povera (Prayer for a Poor Girl) 334 Preghiera alla madre (Prayer to His Mother) 336 Preludio e fughe (Prelude and Fugues), 1928–1929 Preludio (Prelude) 342 Prima fuga (First Fugue) 344 Seconda fuga (Second Fugue) 350 Prima congedo (First Leave-taking) 352 Seconda congedo (Second Leave-taking) 354 Il piccolo Berto (Little Berto), 1929–1931 Tre poesie alla mia balia (Three Poems to My Wet Nurse) 358 1. My daughter 359 2. Sleepless 361 3. . . . A cry 363 Cucina economica (A Cheap Diner) 364 Il carretto del gelato (The Ice Cream Cart) 366 Il figlio della Peppa (Peppa’s Boy) 370 Partenza e ritorno (Departure and Return) 374 Eroica (Heroism) 378 Appunti (Notes) 380 Congedo (Leave-taking) 382 Copyrighted Material Contents xiii Volume Terzo (Volume Three), 1933–1954 Parole (Words), 1933–1934 Parole (Words) 388 Neve (Snow) 390 Ceneri (Ashes) 392 Primavera (Spring) 396 Distacco (Departure) 398 Confine (Boundary) 400 Ulisse (Ulysses) 402 Cuore (Heart) 404 Inverno (Winter) 406 Poesia (Poetry) 408 Stella (Star) 410 Felicità (Happiness) 412 Tre città (Three Cities) 414 1. Milano (Milan) 414 2. Torino (Turin) 416 3. Firenze (Florence) 418 Nutrice (Wet Nurse) 420 Sobborgo (Suburb) 422 Alba (Dawn) 424 Donna (Woman) 426 Lago (Lake) 428 Ultime cose (Last Things), 1935–1943 Lavoro (Work) 432 Bocca (Mouth) 434 Caro luogo (Dear Place) 436 Partita (Game) 438 Notte d’estate (Summer Night) 440 Copyrighted Material xiv Contents Da quando (Since) 442 Contovello (Contovello) 444 Quando il pensiero (When the Thought) 446 Sera di febbraio (February Evening) 448 Il vetro rotto (The Broken Window) 450 Ultimi versi a Lina (Last Verses to Lina) 452 C’era (There Was) 454 Luciana (Luciana) 456 Una notte (One Night) 458 Porto (Port) 460 Campionessa di nuoto (Champion Swimmer) 462 1944 Avevo (I Had) 466 Teatro degli artigianelli (The Artisans’ Theater) Varie (Miscellany) Privilegio (Privilege) 476 La visita (The Visit) 478 Mediterranee (Mediterranean), 1945–1946 Amai (I Loved) 484 Mediterranea (Mediterranea) 486 Amore (Love) 488 Ebbri canti (Drunken Songs) 490 Ulisse (Ulysses) 492 Epigrafe (Epigraphs), 1947–1948 Per una favola nuova (For a New Fable) Epigrafe (Epigraph) 498 496 472 Copyrighted Material Contents xv Uccelli (Birds), 1948 Cielo (Sky) 502 L’ornitologo pietoso (The Compassionate Ornithologist) 504 Il fanciullo e l’averla (The Boy and the Shrike) 506 Passeri (Sparrows) 508 Merlo (Blackbird) 510 Nietzsche (Nietzsche) 512 Sei poesie della vecchiaia (Six Poems of Old Age), 1953–1954 L’uomo e gli animali (Of Man and the Animals) 516 Il poeta e il conformista (The Poet and the Conformist) 518 I vecchi (The Old Men) 520 Ultima (The Last) 522 Appendix: ‘‘What Remains for Poets to Do’’ Chronology 533 Texts, Notes, and Commentary 537 525 Copyrighted Material INTRODUCTION Almost simultaneously with the publication of his first book of poems early in 1911, Umberto Saba, twenty-eight years old, wrote an essay setting forth with passionate earnestness his ideas about the nature and purposes of poetry. Manifestoes were in the air; the Futurist cry of ‘‘Death to the past!’’ had already been heard, and the feeling was widespread that Italian poetry was in need of renovation. But to the discussion of this subject, Saba’s essay made no contribution whatever. It was turned down at La Voce, a literary review of some distinction, by one of the editors, Scipio Slataper, a friend of Saba’s and fellow Triestine. The hurt of this rejection must have been profound, for Saba put the essay away and it remained unpublished during his lifetime. The memory was still sore in the early 1920s when he composed his ‘‘Autobiography,’’ the tenth poem of which recalls that Giovanni Papini and the group around La Voce never liked me much. Among them I was from an alien species. If the essay ‘‘What Remains for Poets to Do’’ (see the appendix) had no public influence, it nevertheless tells us a great deal about what Saba was striving for in his poetry, and by that means it may ultimately have accomplished something of what he originally intended. Saba’s poetry was unique and peculiar in his time. Although distinctly modern, it was not recognizably ‘‘modernist,’’ as, let us say, Giuseppe Ungaretti’s and Eugenio Montale’s were ‘‘modernist.’’ Saba complained frequently and bitterly that he was dismissed, not taken seriously, be- xxi Copyrighted Material xxii Introduction cause of the absence of a modernist signature. His poetry was not cerebral or abstract; it did not mystify at first reading but seemed to offer itself to the reader without difficulty, more or less familiar in language and outlook. Indeed, Saba said of himself that ‘‘formally’’ he was the ‘‘least revolutionary of poets. . . . Something deep in his nature needed to rest upon what was most solid and secure [meaning the traditions of Italian poetry] before setting out to the conquest of himself.’’ Yet the apparent familiarity and apparent lack of difficulty were in the end perfectly compatible with self-conquest—the condition, as he says in the essay, of the only genuine originality. Honest Poets ‘‘What Remains for Poets to Do’’ is an ingenuous piece of writing. Saba was evidently carried away by the urgency and importance of his message, which was, as he said in his covering letter to Slataper, ‘‘a method of work and a program of life, apart from which I do not see any hope for the salvation of poetry in verse.’’ A state of mind so possessed was in no condition to make careful definitions and precise distinctions. Saba rushed into his exposition by almost immediately confusing its two most important elements. ‘‘It remains for poets to write honest poetry,’’ he says in what appears to be a subtitle or statement of theme, and then he proceeds to differentiate ‘‘honest’’ poetry from its opposite by naming two poets, Alessandro Manzoni and Gabriele d’Annunzio, as representatives of honesty and dishonesty in poetry. Where, then, are the qualities of honesty or dishonesty to be found, in the poets or in their poems? If in both, as seems most likely, how are they to be distinguished? What are they, in fact—what makes a poem or poet ‘‘honest’’ or ‘‘dishonest’’? Saba seems to have no hesitation over these questions, but that does not make the terms any clearer. The first part of his essay, focusing on the contrast between Manzoni and d’Annunzio, actually gives a strong indication of the direction of Saba’s thought. The crucial difference between the two, he Copyrighted Material Introduction xxiii says, is that Manzoni writes ‘‘no word that does not perfectly correspond to his vision,’’ whereas d’Annunzio fabricates a vision, he ‘‘exaggerates or actually pretends to passions and admirations that have never been part of his temperament.’’ Thus there is a crucial moral component inherent in the poet’s creative gesture. His vision—whatever that may be—must be truthfully represented. His ‘‘passions and admirations’’ are direct expressions of his character, and to falsify them is to misrepresent himself, which results inevitably in dishonest poetry. Beyond such truthfulness, moreover, the honest poet in Saba’s view takes upon himself a commitment of virtually heroic proportions. For one thing, he must be absolutely selfless; no ulterior motives are allowed the poet. He must not hope for honors or rewards, nor even aspire to originality, for originality must come of itself as a byproduct of honesty. And ‘‘This honesty is possible only for one who has the religion of art and loves it for itself, not in the hope of fame.’’ Poetry is thus a ‘‘discipline,’’ a virtually ascetic way of life for the sake of which the poet surrenders all worldly ambitions and desires. So the young Saba takes a vow in the writing of this essay. He does not claim to fit the rather extravagant description just given of the honest poet, but clearly it is a model for him. He intends to assume the ‘‘program of life’’ that is the only ‘‘hope for the salvation of poetry.’’ What will he do? Most particularly, what kind of poetry will he write? The answer must obviously be: honest poetry. Honest Poetry Saba gives one example from his own experience of the pursuit of honest poetry (he does not claim to have achieved it). In the third section of ‘‘What Remains for Poets to Do,’’ he gives three versions of the opening lines of a poem that came to him as a result of a dream and then seeing himself in a mirror. The first compares the dream to ‘‘a fearsome God’’; the second, to ‘‘a judge’’; and the third, to ‘‘a mirror.’’ After which the poet ‘‘breathed,’’ evidently in relief at having Copyrighted Material xxiv Introduction found what truly corresponded to his vision. This process is not easy to explain; Saba seems to have thought it self-evident. The earlier language was perhaps grandiloquent; it strove for more significance than the author could vouch for. But why is the ‘‘mirror’’ more honest? It would seem that the mind of the poet is activated at a certain moment; it realizes an insight or grasps a relationship. That is what Saba calls ‘‘vision.’’ The words for this vision must perfectly express it, no more, no less. The poet knows what is right, though he may be misled by ambition or laziness or a variety of extraneous factors. There is a benchmark of some sort in his head, an intuitive measure of exactitude and relevance, of honesty, in other words. Perhaps it is innate; perhaps it is imparted by the vision itself, or it is the residue of the poet’s experience with language. In any case, every good poem is the successful outcome of a struggle against the temptations to dishonesty. But honest poetry involves somewhat more than aversion to excess or superficiality. If one examines Saba’s poetry, especially the earlier work from the beginning to, let’s say, The Dying Heart, one finds a persistent element of ‘‘realism’’ in it, by which I mean a conscious and deliberate use of ordinary experience: the events and places and people and objects of daily life. More particularly, they belong to the daily life of the poet. He is immersed in them and they are his reality; they help to convey the truth of his vision and are guarantors of his being in the real world, not one of fantasy or mere language. This idea is so important to him that he writes a curious poem in honor of ‘‘things,’’ the objects of daily life. In the early ‘‘Meditation,’’ he chastises his fellow men for their little regard for things. Your lamp, your bed, your house seem trivial to you; they seem worthless, since when you were born there was already fire, there were the blanket and the cradle for sleeping, and, to put you to sleep, the song. Copyrighted Material Introduction xxv All these things are precious, won for civilized life through ages of suffering. To think of them gives ‘‘joy,’’ Saba says, and they deserve to be remembered and appreciated, not carelessly thrown on the ‘‘garbage heap.’’ Of course, persons and places are a more important content for poetry than objects. The reader of The Songbook soon discovers that he or she is caught up in Saba’s life: his childhood friends, his fellow recruits in military service, his lover who becomes his wife, his child, and most of all his own self, the problematic person for whom poetry is the soul of life. Autobiography The organization of The Songbook is unique. It consists of groups of poems previously published, with dates referring to the time of each group’s composition. Saba does not appear to have had such an organization in mind when he first started publishing, but as the work accumulated, he began to think of it as forming a related sequence, and to his collection of 1921, with its ten groups of poems in chronological order, he gave the title Songbook (Canzoniere), which implied a certain coherence among the parts. The coherence is obviously derived from the stages of Saba’s life. It was the imperative of ‘‘honest poetry,’’ I believe, that gave Saba the initial impulse to the ‘‘autobiographism’’ (autobiografismo) that distinguished his poetry. Other factors certainly played their part. Saba, who thought that egocentrism was part of human nature, and that poets were unusually egocentric, and that he was more egocentric than most poets, found this a readily available, and probably true, explanation for the self-reference of his work. And, as the critic Joseph Cary pointed out, he was ‘‘a poor inventor.’’ When Saba tried to write directly out of his head, to make things up, he was almost invariably unsuccessful. He was a ‘‘concrete artist,’’ he thought, and his own experience was necessary to him to provide the genuine material of his Copyrighted Material xxvi Introduction vision. The harder he tried for exactitude and truthfulness in translating experience into poems, the more authoritative was his voice and impressive his achievement. Not that the autobiography in Saba’s poems meets the standards of contemporary confessional autobiography. If one tried to compose a life of the poet from what he reveals in his poems, the result would be sketchy at best. But Saba was unconventional enough in the context of his age to make his ‘‘autobiographism’’ a matter of some originality as well as controversy. It seemed to many of his readers private, ordinary, merely personal stuff. Could the mundane aspects of a writer’s life be made into the ingredients of poetry? With respect to such questions, Saba made a wise observation in the History and Chronicle of the Songbook: ‘‘Where inner necessity is present, anything can be said, in poetry as in prose; [to] limit poetry to the expression of certain ‘moments’ (even the most luminous) was one of the errors born of the time’s distrust and exhaustion, and every extreme of ‘refinement’ ends—in art as in life—in an extreme of impoverishment’’ (Tutte le prose, 207). Furthermore, to convey the concrete matter of his life, Saba gradually evolved ‘‘a new way of making poems’’ (in the words of the critic Giovanni Titta Rosa quoted by Saba). ‘‘The novelty,’’ Saba goes on, ‘‘consisted in simplicity of speech, in the quiet tone of the words, in the absence of ‘stilts,’ ’’ and the refusal to overdo or falsify anything. And then, to conclude this attempted definition of his uniqueness, Saba adds an eloquent and simple sentence: ‘‘The poetry of Saba is born not of a reaction but from the affirmation of a new personality, appearing at the extreme confines of the fatherland at a difficult moment of our literature’’ (Tutte le prose, 132). Copyrighted Material Introduction xxvii Dolore The reader of English, possibly taken aback by the frequency with which suffering and pain are alluded to in Saba’s poetry, if he or she turns to the original Italian, may be struck by the recurrence of the word dolore. It means ‘‘pain’’ primarily, but also ‘‘grief ’’ and ‘‘sorrow’’ and ‘‘sadness,’’ and it is accompanied in many poems by such close relatives as soffrire, male, tristezza, and others. This is another side of Saba’s autobiographism, and it is sufficiently important in his work to require comment. The causes of dolore are many and unusually varied. He is different from other boys, he tells his mother; his cradle was made from strange wood. At a certain period in his youth he suffers from an obsessive thought that brings on a nervous crisis: ‘‘I am ill with neurasthenia,’’ he writes to a friend, ‘‘and must have complete rest for 3 months. I can’t tell you . . . how I suffer, for it may be that no other human creature has suffered like me. I can’t sleep or think or love; any memory of the past, any hope for the future plunges me into such a state of prostration that I have to call for help and always end up fainting. Often I think I’m going mad, the very word horrifies me’’ (Tutte le poesie, lxxv). And there is the pain of desire, and the pain of rejection; the constraint of marriage and the fear of betrayal. There are loneliness, Jewishness, a feeling of exclusion, of failure, the torment of consciousness that set him apart. And yet all these, so far as the poetry is concerned, are inadequate as explanations. There is something underlying them, a deeper reality, a suffering that is coincident with life, the very ground note of existence. This is not a common theme in English or American poetry, but it is there in the Italian tradition, and nowhere with greater profundity and conviction than in the work of Giacomo Leopardi, the great master of nineteenth-century Italian poetry. Saba considered himself an heir of Leopardi, in whom he found both inspiration and confirmation of his own outlook. He was not, by far, Leopardi’s philosophic Copyrighted Material xxviii Introduction equal, but he knew instinctively what Leopardi meant by the necessity of unhappiness. He brought this awareness into his own sphere of private life and common experience and, as did Leopardi, he made it a source of interest and even pleasure with his art. He says in a late poem from Last Things (‘‘February Evening’’) it’s the thought / of death, after all, that helps one live.’’ He might have added: And the thought of suffering that helps one sing. G. H. Copyrighted Material 4 Poesie dell’adolescenza e giovanili, 1900–1907 AMMONIZIONE Che fai nel ciel sereno bel nuvolo rosato, acceso e vagheggiato dall’aurora del dì? Cangi tue forme e perdi quel fuoco veleggiando; ti spezzi e, dileguando, ammonisci così: Tu pure, o baldo giovane, cui suonan liete l’ore, cui dolci sogni e amore nascondono l’avel, scolorerai, chiudendo le azzurre luci, un giorno; mai più vedrai d’intorno gli amici e il patrio ciel. Copyrighted Material Poems of Adolescence and Youth, 1900–1907 5 THE ADMONITION What are you doing in the serene dawn sky, beautiful rose-red cloud, aflame and lovingly gazed at? You change your shape and floating, lose that fire; you dissolve, and fading, admonish me thus: You, too, o brave youth, for whom the hours joyously sound, for whom sweet dreams and love hide the tomb, you will fade one day, the azure lights gone out, no more to see around you friends and native sky. Copyrighted Material 6 Poesie dell’adolescenza e giovanili, 1900–1907 LA CASA DELLA MIA NUTRICE La casa della mia nutrice posa tacita in faccia alla Cappella antica, ed al basso riguarda, e par pensosa, da una collina alle caprette amica. La città dove nacqui popolosa scopri da lei per la finestra aprica; anche hai la vista del mar dilettosa e di campagne grate alla fatica. Qui—mi sovviene—nell’età primiera, del vecchio camposanto fra le croci, giocavo ignaro sul far della sera. A Dio innalzavo l’anima serena; e dalla casa un suon di care voci mi giungeva, e l’odore della cena. Copyrighted Material Poems of Adolescence and Youth, 1900–1907 7 MY WET NURSE’S HOUSE My nurse’s house stands peacefully facing the old Chapel and looks down as if in thought on a hillside friendly to the goats below. From an open window you can catch sight of the populous city where I was born and have a pleasing vista of the sea and of the fields grateful for hard labor. Here—I remember—in my earliest years I played unthinking among the crosses in the old graveyard as evening fell. To God I offered up a serene spirit, and from the house a sound of dear voices reached me, and the smell of supper. Copyrighted Material 8 Poesie dell’adolescenza e giovanili, 1900–1907 S O N E T T O D I P R I M AV E R A Città paesi e culmini lontani sorridon lieti al sol di primavera. Torna serena la natia riviera. Sono pieni di canti il mare e i piani. Io solo qui di desideri vani t’esalto, mia inesperta anima altera; poi stanco mi riduco in sulla sera alla mia stanza, e incerto del domani. Là seggo sovra il bianco letticciolo, e ripenso a un’età già tramontata, a un amor che mi strugge, all’avvenire. E se nell’ombra odo la voce amata di mia madre appressarsi e poi morire, spesso col pianto vo addolcendo il duolo. Copyrighted Material Poems of Adolescence and Youth, 1900–1907 9 SPRING SONNET Cities, towns, and far-off summits smile with pleasure at the springtime sun. My native coast is calm again. The sea and fields are full of songs. Alone here, I exalt you with vain desires, my spirit, proud and still untested; then, weary and uncertain of tomorrow, I return at evening to my room. I sit there on the narrow white bed and think about a time already past, a love that consumes me, and of the future. And if in darkness I hear the beloved voice of my mother approach and then die away, I often ease my grief with tears. Copyrighted Material 10 Poesie dell’adolescenza e giovanili, 1900–1907 GLAUCO Glauco, un fanciullo dalla chioma bionda, dal bel vestito di marinaretto, e dall’occhio sereno, con gioconda voce mi disse, nel natio dialetto: Umberto, ma perché senza un diletto tu consumi la vita, e par nasconda un dolore o un mistero ogni tuo detto? Perché non vieni con me sulla sponda del mare, che in sue azzurre onde c’invita? Qual è il pensiero che non dici, ascoso, e che da noi, così a un tratto, t’invola? Tu non sai come sia dolce la vita agli amici che fuggi, e come vola a me il mio tempo, allegro e immaginoso. Copyrighted Material Poems of Adolescence and Youth, 1900–1907 11 GLAUCO Glauco, a boy with yellow locks, cool eyes, and dressed in a handsome sailor suit, cheerfully said to me in the local dialect: Umberto, why do you waste your life away, without a pleasure, and seem to hide a grief or mystery in all you say? Why don’t you come with me to the beach that beckons us to its blue waves? What is the thought, unspoken and secret, that suddenly steals you from us? You don’t know how sweet life is to the friends you shun, and how time flies for me, happy and fancy free. Copyrighted Material 12 Poesie dell’adolescenza e giovanili, 1900–1907 A MAMMA Mamma, c’è un tedio oggi, una sottile malinconia, che dalle cose in ogni vita s’insinua, e fa umili i sogni dell’uomo che il suo mondo ha nel suo cuore. Mamma, ritornerà oggi all’amore tuo, chi un dì l’ebbe a vile? Chi è solo con il suo solo dolore? Ed è un giorno di festa, oggi. La via nera è tutta di gente, ben che il cielo sia coperto, ed un vento aspro allo stelo rubi il giovane fiore, e in onde gonfi le gialle acque del fiume. Passeggiano i borghesi lungo il fiume torbido, con violacee ombre di ponti. Sta la neve sui monti ceruli ancora; ed il mio cuore, mamma, strugge, vagante fiamma nei dì festivi, la malinconia. E tu pur, mamma, la domenicale passeggiata riguardi dall’aperta finestra, nella tua casa deserta di me, deserta per te d’ogni bene. Guardi le donne, gli operai (quel bene, mamma, non scordi) gli operai che i panni Copyrighted Material Poems of Adolescence and Youth, 1900–1907 13 TO MAMMA Mamma, the day is tedious, and a subtle melancholy steals in from things in every life and humbles the dreams of the man whose world is in his heart. Mamma, will he return to your love today who once held it so cheaply? Who is alone with his own pain? And today is a holiday. The street is black with people though the sky is overcast, and a harsh wind steals young flowers from their stalks, swells in waves the yellow waters of the river. The townsfolk walk beside the turbid stream with its purplish shadows of bridges. Snow still lies on the blue mountains, and my heart, Mamma, a wandering flame among these festive days, is consumed by melancholy. And you, too, Mamma, watch the Sunday promenade from the open window of your house, abandoned by me, emptied of every comfort for you. You see the women, the workers (good folk, Mamma, don’t forget), whose everyday Copyrighted Material 14 Poesie dell’adolescenza e giovanili, 1900–1907 d’ogni giorno, pur tanto utili e belli, oggi a gara lasciati hanno per quelli delle feste, sì nuovi in vista e falsi. Ma tu, mamma, non sai che sono falsi. Tu non vedi la luce che io vedo. Altra fede ti regge, che non credo più, che credevo nella puerizia, mamma, nella remota puerizia. Guardi fanciulli con nudi i ginocchi forti, con nuove in attoniti occhi voglie, che tra i sudati giochi nacquero a un tratto in cuore ai più. Escono a stormi, vociano, ed il più alto con gesta tra di bimbo e d’uomo. Una giovane passa; ecco, le han dato del gomito nel gomito. Irosa ella si volge, e in cor perdona. Quello addietro rimasto la persona piega, che un fonte vide, e di fonte acqua non costa alla sua sete nulla. Mamma, non io così, mai. La mia culla io la penso tagliata in strano legno. Tese l’animo mio sempre ad un segno cui non tesero i miei dolci compagni. Mamma, è forse di questo che tu piangi sempre là nella tua casa deserta? Copyrighted Material Poems of Adolescence and Youth, 1900–1907 15 clothes, however useful and handsome, are put aside today in the rivalry of holiday apparel, so new-seeming and false. But you, Mamma, don’t know that they are false. You do not see the light I see. A different faith sustains you that I no longer believe, that I believed in childhood, Mamma, in my remote childhood. You look at boys with bare, strong knees, in whose astonished eyes are new desires, suddenly born in their hearts during sweaty games. They come in swarms, yelling; the tallest with gestures between child and man. A girl passes, see how they nudge her elbow with an elbow. Angrily she turns away but pardons them in her heart. One has stayed behind who saw a fountain, he bends over it, and its water costs him nothing. Mamma, I never was like that. I think my cradle was cut from a different wood. My spirit always yearned for a sign that my gentle friends did not yearn for. Mamma, is it perhaps for this that you always cry, there in your empty house? Copyrighted Material 16 Poesie dell’adolescenza e giovanili, 1900–1907 Lacrimi ancora; e dalla non più aperta finestra, con la sera entra delle campane, entra il profondo suono, il preludio della dolce notte, d’un’insonne per te, gelida notte. Ad ogni tocco più verso la notte è roteato il mondo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mamma, il tempo che fugge t’ansia; e l’ansia che impera nel tuo cuore c’è, forse, anche nel mio; c’è, pur latente, il male che ti strugge; son le tue cure in me domenicali malinconie. Lente lente ora sfollano le vie nella sera di festa, e verdi e rossi accendono fanali le osterie di campagna. È una strana sera, mamma, una che certo affanna i cuori come il tuo soli ed amanti, sugli ultimi mari i naviganti, dentro l’orride celle i prigonieri. Canterellando scendono i sentieri del borgo i cittadini, torna dolce al fanciullo la sua casa; . Copyrighted Material Poems of Adolescence and Youth, 1900–1907 17 You weep still, and through the closed window comes the deep sound of evening bells, a prelude to the quiet night, for you a sleepless, icy night. At every peal the earth has turned nearer toward the night. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mamma, the flight of time makes you anxious, and the anxiety that rules your heart is, perhaps, also in mine; there is a latent misery that eats at you: your cares for my Sunday fits of melancholy. Now slowly, slowly the streets empty in the holiday evening, and the country inns are lighting green and red lanterns. It is a strange evening, Mamma, one that surely troubles hearts like yours, lonely and loving, of sailors on the most distant seas, of prisoners in their horrid cells. Now the townsfolk singing descend the district’s paths, the youth returns quietly to his home, . Copyrighted Material 18 Poesie dell’adolescenza e giovanili, 1900–1907 ed il mistero ond’è la vita invasa tu con preghiere esprimi. Mamma, il tempo che fugge cure con cure alterna; ma in chi sugge il latte e in chi denuda la mammella c’è un sangue solo per la vita bella. Copyrighted Material Poems of Adolescence and Youth, 1900–1907 19 and the mystery by which life is invaded you express with prayers. Mamma, the time that rushes on brings care after care, but in he who sucks the milk and she who bares her breast there is but one blood for beautiful life. Copyrighted Material 30 Versi militari, 1908 DURANTE UNA MARCIA 1 Poi che il soldato che non va alla guerra invecchia come donna senz’amore, questo vorremmo: la certezza in cuore di vincere, ed andar di terra in terra. Qui andiamo sì, ma a tanta nostra guerra manca il nemico che ci miri al cuore, manca la morte che il fuggiasco atterra, manca la gloria per cui ben si muore. Son brutte facce intorno a me, e sudori. Guardo il compagno: mezza lingua fuori gli pende, come a macellato bue. O canta, Carmen, le bellezze tue, le lodi in coro della tua persona. Il cielo, senza mai piovere, tuona. Copyrighted Material Military Verses, 1908 31 DURING A MARCH 1 Because the soldier who doesn’t go to war ages like an unloved woman, this is what we crave: certain victory, and to march in triumph from land to land. We march here, true, but in all our warfare the enemy is missing who aims at the heart, death is missing that strikes down the deserter, glory is missing for him who bravely dies. All around me are ugly, sweaty faces. I look at my comrade: his tongue lolls half out like that of a slaughtered ox. O he sings, Carmen, of your beauty, the praises in chorus of your person. The heavens thunder, rain never comes. Copyrighted Material 32 Versi militari, 1908 2 Pure a me non dispiace ancor quest’urto soldatesco, quel cielo arroventato, i colloqui col mio vicino armato. Gli chiedo: «A casa, ove il lavoro frutta; a casa, dove certo hai la tua tutta bella, ci andresti, anche così aggravato, a piedi, con lo zaino affardellato, vivendo d’elemosina e di furto?» Egli mi guarda, e mi lascia parlare. «Non è al paese che frutta il lavoro, ma più giù nell’Americhe lontane; dove c’è tanto vino e tanto pane, tanto oro per chi sa lavorare. In America sì, vorrebbe andare.» Copyrighted Material Military Verses, 1908 33 2 And yet I don’t dislike this hard soldiering, that fiery sky, and chatting with my armed companion. I ask him, ‘‘At home, where you’re paid for work, where you surely have a sweetheart, would you go there now, loaded down like this, on foot, your knapsack crammed, making your way on charity and theft?’’ He looks at me and lets me go on talking. ‘‘You don’t get paid for working in the village, but farther off, in faraway America, where there’s lots of wine and bread, lots of gold for whoever wants to work. To America, yes, that’s where I’d like to go.’’ Copyrighted Material 34 Versi militari, 1908 3 Ed io, se a volte di sì aspra vita soffro, che i sensi ne son tutti offesi; credi, non è la gravezza dei pesi, è l’inutilità della fatica. E tu questo lo sai, mia bella amica; sai come in breve a consolarmi appresi. Lina cui poco detti e molto chiesi penso, e rinnovo la querela antica. «Saperti amante e non poterti avere, star lontano da te quando in cor m’ardi, aver la lingua e non poter parlare, udir quest’acqua e non chinarsi a bere, correre in riga quando a lenti e tardi passi vorrei pensosamente andare.» Copyrighted Material Military Verses, 1908 35 3 And if I sometimes suffer from this hard a life that all my senses ache, believe me, it’s not the load I carry, but that the effort is so pointless. And you know all this, my beautiful friend, you know how quickly to give me comfort. Lina, to whom, I think, I said little and asked much, I bring up again the old complaint. ‘‘To know you as a lover, and not to have you, to be far from you, when my heart’s on fire, to have a tongue and be unable to speak, to hear this water and not kneel down to drink, to run in close formation when I would like to walk slowly and lost in thought.’’ Copyrighted Material 36 Versi militari, 1908 6 E ti raconterò, quando lontani saranno i giorni che n’ero malato, tutti i mostri di cui m’ha liberato l’anima il sol che m’arrossò le mani. Dirò: Per monti e polverosi piani sotto quali mai pesi ho faticato! Credevo non tornare e son tornato. Sono tornato per partir domani. Per mio diletto andrò di monte in valle. Zaino mai più mi graverà le spalle. O Signor mio, non è orribile questo? Foglia caduta cui non torna il verde, nello spazio e nel tempo ogni mio gesto, ogni fatica mia, ecco, si perde. Copyrighted Material Military Verses, 1908 37 6 And I will tell you, when the days are long past that sickened me, of all the monsters freed from my soul by the sun that reddened my hands. I will say: Over mountains and dusty plains under what loads I labored! I thought I wouldn’t come back and I came back. I came back to go out again the next day. For my pleasure I will go from mountain to valley. A knapsack will never weigh me down. O my Lord, isn’t this a horrible thing? A fallen leaf does not turn green again; every act of mine in space or in time, every effort—like that!—is lost. Copyrighted Material 38 Versi militari, 1908 7 Si perde profondando entro un uguale buio. Di tutta la pena sofferta l’accesa faccia emergerà, l’aperta bocca, il fiero accennar d’un caporale. Fin che già vecchio, nell’ultimo male, della febbre alla tetra luce incerta, andrò salendo una terribil’erta, per scendere di corsa un bel viale. Giacerò nello sfatto letto, e fuoco, farò fuoco sui monti nell’aurora coi fantaccini del tempo d’allora. Sfuggiranno tra il verde, curvi un poco. Io nel delirio qualche nome ancora ricorderò, qualche guerresco gioco. Copyrighted Material Military Verses, 1908 39 7 Lost, swallowed in a darkness that is everywhere. Out of all the pain endured, a burning face will emerge, the open mouth, a corporal’s furious beckoning. Until I’m old, in my last sickness, feverish in the dim, uncertain light, I will go on climbing a terrible slope to descend in a rush a lovely avenue. I will lie in a rumpled bed, and fire, I will fire on the peaks at dawn with the infantrymen of that time. They will flee through the green, crouching. In my delirium I will still remember some names, some warlike games. Copyrighted Material 82 Trieste e una donna, 1910–1912 TRIESTE Ho attraversata tutta la città. Poi ho salita un’erta, popolosa in principio, in là deserta, chiusa da un muricciolo: un cantuccio in cui solo siedo; e mi pare che dove esso termina termini la città. Trieste ha una scontrosa grazia. Se piace, è come un ragazzaccio aspro e vorace, con gli occhi azzurri e mani troppo grandi per regalare un fiore; come un amore con gelosia. Da quest’erta ogni chiesa, ogni sua via scopro, se mena all’ingombrata spiaggia, o alla collina cui, sulla sassosa cima, una casa, l’ultima, s’aggrappa. Intorno circola ad ogni cosa un aria strana, un aria tormentosa, l’aria natia. La mia città che in ogni parte è viva, ha il cantuccio a me fatto, alla mia vita pensosa e schiva. Copyrighted Material Trieste and a Woman, 1910–1912 83 TRIESTE I crossed the whole city, then climbed a slope, crowded at first, deserted higher up, closed off by a low wall, a niche where I can sit alone, and it seems to me that where the slope ends the city also ends. Trieste has a rude charm. If you like it, it’s like a tough and greedy kid with blue eyes and hands too big for offering a flower, like jealousy in love. From this height I can see every church, every street, whether it leads to the cluttered beach or to the hill on which a house, the last, clings to the stony crest. Around everything there flows a strange air, a troubling air, the air of home. My city, in all its parts alive, keeps this quiet spot for me, for my life brooding and solitary. Copyrighted Material 84 Trieste e una donna, 1910–1912 VERSO CASA Anima, se ti pare che abbastanza vagabondammo per giungere a sera, vogliamo entrare nella nostra stanza, chiuderla, e farci un po’ di primavera? Trieste, nova città, che tiene d’una maschia adolescenza, che di tra il mare e i duri colli senza forma e misura crebbe; dove l’arte o non ebbe ozi, o, se c’è, c’è in cuore degli abitanti, in questo suo colore di giovinezza, in questo vario moto; tutta esplorammo, fino al più remoto suo cantuccio, la più strana città. Ora che con la sera anche si fa vivo il bisogno di tornare in noi, vogliamo entrare ove con tanto amore sempre ti ascolto, ove tu al bene puoi volgere un lungo errore? Della più assidua pena, della miseria più dura e nascosta, anima, noi faremo oggi un poema. Copyrighted Material Trieste and a Woman, 1910–1912 85 TOWA R D H O M E Soul, if you think we have wandered enough to arrive at evening, shall we go into our room, close the door, and make a bit of spring there? Trieste, new city, that preserves a boyish adolescence; that grew without form or measure between the sea and the stark hills; where there has been no leisure for art, or, if it’s there, it’s in the hearts of the inhabitants, in its flush of youth, its busy comings and goings; we have explored it all, to its most secret hiding place, this strangest of cities. Now that with evening the need also revives to turn back to ourselves, shall we go in where I always hear you with so much love, where you can redeem an old blunder? From the most relentless pain, from suffering most harsh and hidden, soul, today we will make a poem. Copyrighted Material 140 Trieste e una donna, 1910–1912 ALL’ANIMA MIA Dell’inesausta tua miseria godi. Tanto ti valga, anima mia, sapere; sì che il tuo male, null’altro, ti giovi. O forse avventurato è chi s’inganna? né a se stesso scoprirsi ha in suo potere, né mai la sua sentenza lo condanna? Magnanima sei pure, anima nostra; ma per quali non tuoi casi t’esalti, sì che un bacio mentito indi ti prostra. A me la mia miseria è un chiaro giorno d’estate, quand’ogni aspetto dagli alti luoghi discopro in ogni suo contorno. Nulla m’è occulto; tutto è sì vicino dove l’occhio o il pensiero mi conduce. Triste ma soleggiato è il mio cammino; e tutto in esso, fino l’ombra, è in luce. Copyrighted Material Trieste and a Woman, 1910–1912 141 TO MY SOUL Endless misery is your only pleasure, my soul. It’s all that matters to you, so that your pain, nothing else, can do you good. Or maybe he who deceives himself is better off ? who never can face himself or the sentence that condemns him? Still, you are magnanimous, my soul, but for what causes not your own are you exalted, if a lying kiss soon prostrates you. To me my misery is a brilliant summer day, when I discern every aspect of the high places in all their contours. Nothing is hidden from me; everything is near at hand where eye or thinking leads me. Sad but sunlit is the road I take, and all that’s on it, even darkness, is in light. Copyrighted Material 142 Trieste e una donna, 1910–1912 L ’ U LT I M A T E N E R E Z Z A Ti vedo, mia povera Lina, ti vedo, e una gran tenerezza mi vince, ti vedo bambina. Nella casa di tua madre ben triste, ben devastata, fra i molti fratelli, senza piangere chi, se non te sola, non chiamata, si leva ogni mattina? Or dice, ravviandole i capelli, dice la madre a questa sua figliola: «Di buone come te non ne ho mai viste». Un’infinita attonita dolcezza, che quasi mi sgomenta, il gracil viso trasfigura, e pur esso, il tuo sorriso di devota risponde alla carezza; nei tuoi occhi è passato il paradiso. Ami così tua madre; ma più bella della Madonna è la maestra; augusta come un tempio la scuola; la tua frusta vesticciola per lei orni e rammendi. E se lontano un suono d’ore intendi (cerchi un nastro, un colore che le piaccia) un subito spavento, ecco, t’agghiaccia, come inseguita il rimorso t’accora. Pensi: Dovessi darle oggi il dolore d’un mio castigo; fosse scorsa l’ora, fosse suonata già la campanella! Copyrighted Material Trieste and a Woman, 1910–1912 143 T H E U LT I M AT E T E N D E R N E S S I see you, my poor Lina, I see you and a great tenderness overcomes me, I see you as a child. In your mother’s house, she so sad, so crushed among your many brothers, who if not you alone, without tears, not even called, rises early every morning? She says, fixing your hair, the mother says to her little girl: ‘‘I’ve never seen a child as good as you.’’ A boundless, dazzled sweetness that almost unnerves me, transfigures the delicate face, and your worshipful smile responds to the caress; paradise was visible in your eyes. So much do you love your mother, but more beautiful than the Madonna is the schoolmistress, the school august as a temple; your threadbare little dress adorned and mended for her. And if you hear the hour strike far off (while you look for a ribbon, a color that she likes), a sudden fear chills you; like one pursued, remorse breaks your heart. You think: Today I must give her the pain of punishing me; would that the hour were over, that the bell had already rung! Copyrighted Material 144 Trieste e una donna, 1910–1912 Ti vedo, mia povera Lina, ti vedo, e il rimpianto m’investe più forte; ti vedo ancor china sul tuo lavoro; o all’aperto, seduta a una tavola ingombra, triste e muta fra le compagne, nella tua Trieste. Uscita a festeggiar la primavera, nell’allegra osteria delle Due Strade, come tarda a venir, Lina, la sera! Pure, sotto alla pergola, son risa, son canzoni—uno ha con sé la chitarra—; tu dal mondo e da te sembri divisa. Fuor’una che di te quasi è amorosa, le amiche, fra cui t’ergi agli occhi miei come tra i fiori minori la rosa, dicono: «Questa Lina è ben bizzarra, ben superba»; ed a te brindando quella che non t’ama, ove dice: «Alla più bella», fra sé, soggiunge: «il più triste destino!» T’offre il suo braccio e il suo cuore il vicino, non veduta, una tua lacrima cade sulla tovaglia macchiata di vino. Forse che invano in bianco petto hai cuore d’amante, e sola nel tuo ardore sei, sola che parli a te di solo amore? «Alla più bella il più triste destino.» Copyrighted Material Trieste and a Woman, 1910–1912 145 I see you, my poor Lina, I see you, and yet more strongly does regret assail me; I see you bent over your work, or outside seated at a cluttered table, sad and silent among companions, in your Trieste. Gone out to celebrate the spring at the cheerful Inn of the Two Roads, how the evening delays its coming, Lina! And under the pergola are laughter and songs—someone has brought a guitar; you seem remote from the world and yourself. Except for one who’s almost in love with you, your girlfriends, among whom, to my eyes, you stand out like a rose among the lesser flowers, say, ‘‘This Lina is very strange, very proud’’; and one who doesn’t love you, when toasting you, says, ‘‘To the most beautiful,’’ and adds to herself, ‘‘the saddest fate!’’ The one near to you offers his arm and heart; unseen, one of your tears falls on the tablecloth stained with wine. Perhaps you vainly keep the heart of a lover in your pure breast, and are alone in your passion, alone speaking to yourself alone of love? ‘‘To the most beautiful the saddest fate.’’ Copyrighted Material 146 Trieste e una donna, 1910–1912 Ti vedo, mia povera Lina, ti vedo, e alla gola mi serra l’angoscia; non gracil bambina, non giovanetta alle compagne invisa, morta ti vedo; e son io che t’ho uccisa. «Levati, se pur m’ami, amor mio santo; levati, ed anche mi sorridi un poco. Or che non vedi ch’è stato per gioco, perché t’amavo, e non sapevo io accanto viverti, e lontananza il cor ne spezza?» Non risponde; pietà no, non la stringe di chi solo da lei sofferse tanto, se per farmi morir morta s’infinge. «Mi dici che sarà, se non rispondi, che sarà della mia povera vita se non apri i dolenti occhi che ascondi?» Un’infinita attonita dolcezza s’incide sulla faccia ben smagrita, alta quiete dopo la procella. «Ora mi porteranno alla Cappella dei morti, marcirà sotto la terra la tua Lina che un giorno era sì bella.» Così ti vedo; e dopo tanta guerra, dopo tante per te notti affannose, dentro il mio cuore a Dio rendo amorose grazie per non averti ancora uccisa. Copyrighted Material Trieste and a Woman, 1910–1912 147 I see you, my poor Lina, I see you, and anguish tightens my throat, not as a delicate child, not as a girl scorned by her companions, I see you dead, and it’s I who have killed you. ‘‘Get up, if you love me, my holy love, get up and smile at me a little. Don’t you see now that it was all a joke, because I loved you and didn’t know how to live with you, and your absence breaks my heart?’’ She does not answer; pity, no, she has none for him who alone suffers so much because of her, if to make me die she feigns death. ‘‘Tell me what, if you don’t answer, what will become of my poor life if you do not open your sad and hidden eyes?’’ An infinite, dazed sweetness is engraved on the shrunken face, profound quiet after the storm. ‘‘Now they will carry me to the Chapel of the dead; she will decay under the earth, your Lina, who was once so lovely.’’ Thus I see you, and after so much war, after so many troubled nights for you, in my heart I render loving thanks to God for not yet having killed you. Copyrighted Material 152 La serena disperazione, 1913–1915 IL GAR ZONE CON L A CARRIOL A È bene ritrovare in noi gli amori perduti, conciliare in noi l’offesa; ma se la vita all’interno ti pesa tu la porti al di fuori. Spalanchi le finestre o scendi tu tra la folla: vedrai che basta poco a rallegrarti: un animale, un gioco, o, vestito di blu, un garzone con una carriola, che a gran voce si tien la strada aperta, e se appena in discesa trova un’erta non corre più, ma vola. La gente che per via a quell’ora è tanta non tace, dopo che indietro si tira. Egli più grande fa il fracasso e l’ira, più si dimena e canta. Copyrighted Material Serene Despair, 1913–1915 153 T H E S H O P- B OY W I T H T H E W H E E L B A R ROW It’s good to recover in ourselves lost loves, or reconcile ourselves to an affront, but if life pent up inside weighs you down, take it out of doors. Throw open the windows, or go down into the crowd; you’ll see how little it takes to cheer you up: an animal, a game, or, dressed in blue, a shop-boy with a wheelbarrow clearing the street with a loud voice, who, if he finds the slightest downward slope, runs no more, but flies. The streets are full of people at that hour who don’t keep quiet after dodging him. The noisier the uproar and the wrath, the more he swings his hips and sings. Copyrighted Material 154 La serena disperazione, 1913–1915 UN RICORDO Non dormo. Vedo una strada, un boschetto, che sul mio cuore come un’ansia preme; dove si andava, per star soli e insieme, io e un altro ragazzetto. Era la Pasqua; i riti lunghi e strani dei vecchi. E se non mi volesse bene —pensavo—e non venisse più domani? E domani non venne. Fu un dolore, uno spasimo fu verso la sera; che un’amicizia (seppi poi) non era, era quello un amore; il primo; e quale e che felicità n’ebbi, tra i colli e il mare di Trieste. Ma perché non dormire, oggi, con queste storie di, credo, quindici anni fa? Copyrighted Material Serene Despair, 1913–1915 155 A MEMORY I can’t sleep. I see a road, a grove of trees, that oppress my heart like a dread, where we went to be alone together, I and another boy. It was Easter: the long and alien rituals of the old. And if he doesn’t care for me —I wondered—and won’t come back tomorrow? And tomorrow he did not come. It was a grief; it became an agony toward dusk; it was not (I realized later) friendship; it was love, the first, and what happiness I had in it, between the hills and the sea of Trieste. But why can’t I sleep tonight for these thoughts of, I suppose, fifteen years ago? Copyrighted Material 156 La serena disperazione, 1913–1915 L A R I T I R ATA I N P I A Z Z A A L D R O VA N D I A B O L O G N A Piazza Aldrovandi e la sera d’ottobre hanno sposate le bellezze loro; ed è felice l’occhio che le scopre. L’allegra ragazzaglia urge e schiamazza, che i bersaglieri colle trombe d’oro formano il cerchio in mezzo della piazza. Io li guardo: Dai monti alla pianura pingue, ed a quella ove nell’aria è il male, convengono a una sola vita dura, a un solo malcontento, a un solo tu; or quivi a un cenno del lor caporale gonfian le gote in fior di gioventù. La canzonetta per l’innamorata, un’altra che le coppie in danza scaglia, e poi, correndo già, la ritirata. E tu sei tutta in questa piazza, o Italia. Copyrighted Material Serene Despair, 1913–1915 157 S O U N D I N G T H E R E T R E AT I N P I A Z Z A A L D R O VA N D I I N B O L O G N A Piazza Aldrovandi and October twilight have married their beauties, and lucky is the eye that beholds them. The happy crowd of youngsters shoves and yells, as bersaglieri with their golden trumpets form a circle in the middle of the square. I watch them: they have come from the mountains to the fat plains, where sickness is in the air, all mustered to the same hard life, to the same discontent, the same common ‘‘you’’; now at a signal from their corporal they puff their cheeks in all the flush of youth. A love song for a sweetheart, another that flings couples into dance, and then, already running, the retreat. And all of you is in this square, oh Italy. Copyrighted Material 172 Poesie scritte durante la guerra L A S TA Z I O N E La stazione ricordi, a notte, piena d’ultimi addii, di mal frenati pianti, che la tradotta in partenza affollava? Una trombetta giù in fondo suonava l’avanti; ed il tuo cuore, il tuo cuore agghiacciava. Copyrighted Material Poems Written in Wartime 173 T H E S TAT I O N Remember the station at night, filled with last good-byes and ill-restrained tears, mobbed by the troop train about to pull out? A bugle in the distance signaled departure, and your heart, your heart turned to ice. Copyrighted Material 174 Poesie scritte durante la guerra MILANO 1917 Per ogni via un soldato—un fante—zoppo va poggiato pian piano al suo bastone, che nella mano libera ha un fagotto. Copyrighted Material Poems Written in Wartime 175 MILAN 1917 In every street a soldier—infantry—limps slowly, leaning on his stick, in his free hand carrying a bundle. Copyrighted Material 176 Poesie scritte durante la guerra S O G N AV O , A L S U O L P R O S T R AT O . . . Sognavo, al suol prostrato, un bene antico. Ero a Trieste, nella mia stanzetta. Guardavo in alto rosea nuvoletta veleggiar, scolorando, il ciel turchino. Ella in aere sfacevasi; al destino suo m’ammonivo in una poesietta. Quindi «Mamma—dicevo—io esco»; e in fretta a leggerla volavo al caro amico. «Che fai, carogna?» E mi destò una mano: e vidi, come al cielo gli occhi apersi, tra fumo e scoppi su noi l’aeroplano. Vidi macerie di case in rovina, correr soldati come in fuga spersi, e lontano lontano la marina. Copyrighted Material Poems Written in Wartime 177 P R O S T R AT E O N T H E G R O U N D, I D R E A M E D . . . Prostrate on the ground, I dreamed of a long past happiness. I was in Trieste in my little room. High up I saw a small pink cloud drift by, growing faint in the blue sky. It dissolved into the air; I took heed of its fate in a little poem. Then, ‘‘Mamma,’’ I said, ‘‘I’m going out,’’ and off I flew to read it to my best friend. ‘‘What’re you doing, lard-ass?’’ a hand shook me, and wide-eyed, I saw in the heavens, amid smoke and explosions overhead, the airplane. I saw the ruins of fallen houses, soldiers running, scattered as in flight, and far, far away, the seashore. Copyrighted Material 206 Cose leggere e vaganti, 1920 C O M M I ATO Voi lo sapete, amici, ed io lo so. Anche i versi somigliano alle bolle di sapone; una sale e un’altro no. Copyrighted Material Light and Airy Things, 1920 207 ENVOI You know it, friends, and I do too. Poems also resemble soap bubbles: one flies up, and another, no. Copyrighted Material 302 Cuor morituro, 1925–1930 S O N E T T O D I PA R A D I S O Mi viene in sogno una bianca casetta, sull’erto colle, dentro un’aria affatto tranquilla; e il verde del colle è compatto e solitario, e l’ora è benedetta. Mi viene in sogno una dolce capretta, che mi sta presso, e mi sogguarda in atto placido umano, quasi un muto patto ne legasse. Poi pasce ancor l’erbetta. Volge il sole al tramonto; un luccichio cava dai vetri, un dorato splendore, della casetta su in alto romita. E tutto il dolce che c’è nella vita in quel sol punto, in quel solo fulgore s’era congiunto, in quell’ultimo addio. Copyrighted Material The Dying Heart, 1925–1930 303 S O N N E T O N PA R A D I S E In a dream a small white house comes to me, on the slope of a hill enclosed in a perfectly tranquil air, and the green of the hill is dense and deserted, and the hour is blessed. In a dream a gentle goat comes to me, who stays close by and looks at me sidelong in a placid human manner, almost as if a silent pact binds us. Then she resumes cropping the short grass. The sun turns toward its setting, the windows glitter, a golden brightness shines from the small house on the lonely height. And all the sweetness to be found in life, in that one moment, in that sole radiance, has been gathered in that final good-bye. Copyrighted Material 304 Cuor morituro, 1925–1930 LA VETRINA Sono a letto, ammalato. E gli occhi intorno giro per la mia stanza. Oltre i lucenti vetri un mobile antico a sé li chiama, alle cose ch’esposte in lui si stanno. Bianche stoviglie, ove son navi in blu dipinte, un porto, affaccendate genti intorno a quelle. Altre vi sono cose ch’erano già nella materna casa, cui guardo con rimorso oggi ed affanno, e così lieto le guardavo un giorno, che di nuove acquistarne avevo brama. Ciascuna d’esse a un tempo mi richiama che fu sì dolce, che per me non fu tempo, che ancor non ero nato, ancora non dovevo morire. Ed anche in parte ero già nato, era negli avi miei il mio dolore d’oggi. E in un m’accora strano pensiero, che mi dico: Ahi, quanta pace era al mondo prima ch’io nascessi; e l’ho turbata io solo. Ed è un mendace sogno; è questo il delirio, amiche cose. Quanto un giorno v’ho amate, belle cose, che siete là nella vetrina, e altrove siete, nell’ombra e nel sole, ed oh quale ho nostalgia di lasciarvi! Nel buio, Copyrighted Material The Dying Heart, 1925–1930 305 THE GLASS CABINET I am in bed, sick. And my eyes drift around my room. They are drawn by the bright glass panes of an old cabinet to the objects displayed there. White dishes painted with blue boats, a port with busy people all around. And there are other things that were in my mother’s house; today I look at them with anguish and remorse, though once I gazed with such delight that I longed to possess still more. Each one takes me back to a time so sweet, it was not time for me, when I was not yet born and did not have to die. Still there was a part of me already born: in my forebears was my present sadness. And I am grieved by a strange thought that tells me: Alas, how much peace was in the world before I was born, and I alone disturbed it. It is a lying dream; it is delirium, you friendly things. How much I loved you, pretty things, there in the glass cabinet, and wherever else you are, in shade and sunlight, and oh how homesick I am at leaving you! Into the dark, Copyrighted Material 306 Cuor morituro, 1925–1930 tornar nel buio dell’alvo materno, nel duro sonno, onde più nulla smuove, non pur l’amore, soave tormento sì, ma a me fatto intollerando. È il letto questo in cui venni da quel caro buio, molto piangendo, alla luce, alle cose ond’ebber gioia i miei occhi. E mortale non so che più quel dì deprechi. E male non ho che m’impauri, o è solo interno. Come ogni notte, quando il lume spengo, che agli occhi miei gravi di sonno apporta esso fastidio, e metto il capo sotto la coltre, e tutto a me stesso rinvengo, tutto in me mi rannicchio, or sì vorrei fare, e che più per me non fosse giorno! E sì tutto m’arride. Anche la gloria viene; il suo bacio, ancor che tardo, io sento. Del divino per me milleottocento amate figlie, qui dalla lontana Inghilterra venute, di voi dico, pinte tazzine, vasellame usato dagli avi miei laboriosi, al tempo che la vita più degna era e più umana, e molto prima che nascessi, io so la vostra istoria, che ai vecchi la chiese il poeta ch’è pio verso il passato. Approdava ogni mese un bastimento Copyrighted Material The Dying Heart, 1925–1930 307 to return to the dark of the maternal womb, to the slumber where nothing stirs, not even love, sweet torment yes, but an unbearable fact to me. This is the bed to which I came from that dear darkness, crying so much, into the light, to the things from which my eyes took joy. And I know nothing more deadly than that ill-starred day. And I have no illness that frightens me, it’s only my thoughts. As every night, when I extinguish the lamp that brings distress to my eyes heavy with sleep, and I hide my head under the blanket, and it all comes back to me, I curl up inside myself, I would do it now, so that the day would no longer exist for me! And then everything smiles at me. Glory also comes; even if late, I feel its kiss. Beloved children of the, to me, divine nineteenth century, come here from far off England, I speak of you, painted cups, china used by my hardworking ancestors at a time when life was more gracious and more humane, and long before I was born, I know your history, I, a poet who reveres the past, have questioned the elders. Every month a ship docked at this friendly port for trade, with such great abundance of you Copyrighted Material 308 Cuor morituro, 1925–1930 a questo porto di traffici amico, con di voi sì gran copia che il mendico come il ricco ne aveva. Aveva il tempo fornito appena atroce guerra, e pace era sui mari, ma non mai nel cuore dell’uomo. Or voi nella vetrina state che v’è coetanea, semplice, capace di molte e belle forme. Ed io a guardarvi non so, nel mio dolore, altro che morte non so invocarmi. Non vissuto invano, più d’esser nato la sventura sento. Copyrighted Material The Dying Heart, 1925–1930 309 that the beggar like the rich man could have some. The times had just brought a hideous war, and there was peace on the waters, though never in men’s hearts. Now you rest in the plain glass cabinet, your contemporary, that holds so many beautiful shapes. And I looking at you do not know, in my sorrow, how to invoke anything other than death. Not having lived in vain, I feel, is greater misfortune than having been born. Copyrighted Material Prelude and Fugues, 1928–1929 345 FIRST FUGUE (in 2 voices) Life, my life, is as sad as the black coal shed I still see in this street. I see, beyond its open doors, the blue sky and the sea with its masts. Black as the shed is it in my heart; the heart of man is a cavern of punishment. Beautiful is the sky at midmorning, and beautiful the sea that reflects it, and beautiful, too, is my heart, a mirror of all living hearts. If in my sight, if beyond it, I see only despair, darkness, desire for death, which fear of the unknown raises before me, all the sweetness I have within me is swept away. Dead leaves don’t frighten me, and I think of men as of leaves. Today your eyes see the sky and the sea from the black coal shed, and by contrast they are luminous; remember that tomorrow your eyes will be closed. And others will open, like mine, like yours. Life, your life that is so dear to you, is a long mistake, Copyrighted Material 346 Preludio e fughe, 1928–1929 (breve, dorato, appena un’illusione!) e tu lo sconti duramente. Come in me in questi altri lo sconto: persone, mansi animali affaticati; intorno vadano in ozio o per faccende, io sono in essi, ed essi sono in me e nel giorno che ci rivela. Pascerti puoi tu di fole ancora? Io soffro; il mio dolore, lui solo, esiste. E non un poco il blu del cielo, e il mare oggi sì unito, e in mare le antiche vele e le ormeggiate navi, e il nero magazzino di carbone, che il quadro, come per caso, incornicia stupendamente, e quelle più soavi cose che in te, del dolore al contrasto, senti—accese delizie—e che non dici? Troppo temo di perderle; felici chiamo per questo i non nati. I non nati non sono, i morti non sono, vi è solo la vita viva eternamente; il male che passa e il bene che resta. Il mio bene passò, come il mio male, ma più in fretta passò; di lui nulla mi resta. Taci, empie cose non dire. Anche tu taci, voce che dalla mia sei nata, voce d’altri tempi serena; se puoi, taci; lasciami assomigliare la mia vita —tetra cosa opprimente—a quella nera Copyrighted Material Prelude and Fugues, 1928–1929 347 (brief, golden, hardly an illusion!), and you pay for it cruelly. As for myself I pay for these others: people, gentle, weary animals; they go about in idleness or at work, I am in them and they are in me in the daylight that reveals us. Can you still feed on fairy tales? I suffer; my pain, it alone exists. And not the blue of the sky, and the sea today so calm, and on the sea the worn sails and the moored ships, and the black coal shed, that the picture frames as if by chance so marvelously, and those more delicate things, in contrast to pain, you feel within you—vivid joys—and that you don’t speak of ? I fear too much losing them; for this reason I call the unborn happy. The unborn do not exist, the dead do not, there is only life, warm, bright, eternal life, the bad that passes, and the good that stays. My good has passed, like my bad, but it passed more swiftly; none of it is left to me. Be still, don’t say sacrilegious things. You too be quiet, voice that was born from my own, serene voice of other times; be quiet, if you can; let me compare my life —gloomy, oppressive thing—to that black Copyrighted Material 348 Preludio e fughe, 1928–1929 volta, sotto alla quale un uomo siede, fin che gli termini il giorno, e non vede l’azzurro mare—oh, quanta in te provavi nel dir dolcezza!—e il cielo che gli è sopra. Copyrighted Material Prelude and Fugues, 1928–1929 349 vault, beneath which a man sits until the day ends for him, and he does not see the azure waves—oh, how much you tried to tell of the sweetness within you!—and the sky above him. Copyrighted Material 350 Preludio e fughe, 1928–1929 SECOND FUGUE (a 2 voci) L’ultima goccia di dolcezza esprimi, anima stanca e muori. Oh, nella mia, di fresco nata, tu degnassi piamente passare! Un dono tu mi stimi ben grande! Che se a me tu lo facessi, come una nuvoletta i rai del sole, t’accoglierei nel mio seno. Non vuole questo il destino; ed io, se pur potessi, non lo farei. Perché così m’affliggi? Perché t’amo. Di amarmi dici, e il dono di te non mi faresti. Chiedi un dono che sarebbe un castigo. Oh, me lo infliggi! Anima fanciulletta, anima cara, ecco prendi di me quel che tu puoi. Io prendo tutto: la dolcezza, e poi, che più mi piace, la tua essenza amara. Copyrighted Material Prelude and Fugues, 1928–1929 351 SECOND FUGUE (in 2 voices) You squeeze out the last drop of sweetness, weary soul, and you die. Oh, if only you would deign to pass charitably into mine, newborn! You consider me a great gift! If you were to offer it, like the rays of the sun to a cloud, I would clasp you to my breast. Fate does not will it, and I, if I could, I would not do it. Why do you grieve me so? Because I love you. You say you love me, and the gift of yourself you do not give me. You ask a gift that would be a punishment. Oh, inflict it upon me! Childish soul, dear soul, here take of me what you can. I take all: the sweetness, and then, what I like more, your bitter essence. Copyrighted Material 402 Parole, 1933–1934 ULISSE O tu che sei sì triste ed hai presagi d’orrore—Ulisse al declino—nessuna dentro l’anima tua dolcezza aduna la Brama per una pallida sognatrice di naufragi che t’ama? Copyrighted Material Words, 1933–1934 403 U LY S S E S O you so joyless and with forebodings of horror—Ulysses in decline—does no Desire muster tenderness in your soul for a pale dreamer of shipwrecks who loves you? Copyrighted Material 404 Parole, 1933–1934 CUORE Cuore serrato come in una morsa, mio triste cuore, rallegrati di questa ultima corsa contro il dolore. Quale angoscia non hai viva abbracciata, vivo restando? Una piccola cosa ti è bastata, di quando in quando. Copyrighted Material Words, 1933–1934 405 HEART Heart clamped shut as in a vice, my unhappy heart, rejoice at this last race against sorrow. What suffering have you not embraced, and remained alive? A little thing sufficed you from time to time. Copyrighted Material 406 Parole, 1933–1934 INVERNO È notte, inverno rovinoso. Un poco sollevi le tendine, e guardi. Vibrano i tuoi capelli selvaggi, la gioia ti dilata improvvisa l’occhio nero; che quello che hai veduto—era un’immagine della fine del mondo—ti conforta l’intimo cuore, lo fa caldo e pago. Un uomo si avventura per un lago di ghiaccio, sotto una lampada storta. Copyrighted Material Words, 1933–1934 407 WINTER It’s night, a bitter winter. You raise the drapes a little and peer out. Your hair blows wildly; joy suddenly opens wide your black eyes, and what you saw—it was an image of the world’s end—comforts your inmost heart, warms and eases it. A man ventures out on a lake of ice, under a crooked streetlamp. Copyrighted Material 408 Parole, 1933–1934 POESIA È come a un uomo battuto dal vento, accecato di neve—intorno pinge un inferno polare la città— l’aprirsi, lungo il muro, di una porta. Entra. Ritrova la bontà non morta, la dolcezza di un caldo angolo. Un nome posa dimenticato, un bacio sopra ilari volti che più non vedeva che oscuri in sogni minacciosi. Torna egli alla strada, anche la strada è un altra. Il tempo al bello si è rimesso, i ghiacci spezzano mani operose, il celeste rispunta in cielo e nel suo cuore. E pensa che ogni estremo di mali un bene annunci. Copyrighted Material Words, 1933–1934 409 P OETRY It’s as if for a man battered by the wind, blinded by snow—all around him an arctic inferno pummels the city— a door opens along a wall. He goes in. He finds again a living kindness, the sweetness of a warm corner. A forgotten name places a kiss on cheerful faces that he has not seen except obscurely in menacing dreams. He returns to the street, and the street, too, is not the same. Fine weather has come back, busy hands break up the ice, the blue reappears in the sky and in his heart. And he thinks that every extreme of evil foretells a good. Copyrighted Material 410 Parole, 1933–1934 STELLA Stella che m’hai veduto un giorno nascere —passavi in cielo al primo mio apparire— del bene in cambio che, nudo ed inerme, da tanto male ho derivato, dammi scendere in breve volontario all’altra riva; ogni linea si cancella, tace ingiustizia, non pesa più abbandono, fuori della tua orbita ch’io giunga, o tu che in cielo passavi funesta. Copyrighted Material Words, 1933–1934 411 S TA R Star that saw me born one day —you crossed the sky at my appearance— naked and helpless, in exchange for all the misery that came to me from life, let me soon reach the other shore, beyond your orbit: there every line is erased, injustice is silent, loneliness matters no more, o you who crossed the sky so fatally. Copyrighted Material 478 Varie L A V I S I TA a Bruno e Maria Sanguinetti Ho scritto fine al mio lavoro; messo, diligente scolaro, in bella, pagina dopo pagina. Il cuore mi mancava e proseguivo. Ora da te, partito, com’usi, a un tratto, con mia figlia sosto, i tuoi bimbi e Maria tua di Sardegna. Il destino riunì queste persone —né altrimenti poteva—in questa stanza. Ardono al caminetto alcune legna. Si fa notte sui colli, sul giardino che un triste inverno spogliò, nell’incongruo di quei discordi pigolio che accusa vicini l’ora della cena, il bacio della mamma nel bianco caldo letto. Si fa notte ai dipinti da Bolaffio, seduti due sopra una panca (parlano di politica), a quell’immensa dietro magnolia, alla bambina che sorvola, battendo il cerchio, un viale. Altri tempi era il mio quadro; tutta illuminava la mia casa. Amico Copyrighted Material Miscellany 479 THE VISIT to Bruno and Maria Sanguinetti I have written finis to my work, arranged it perfectly, like a diligent schoolboy, page by page. I had no heart for it, but I went on. Now, in your absence, sudden as usual, I stop with my daughter to visit your children and your Maria from Sardinia. Destiny brings these people together —nor could it do otherwise—in this room. A few logs burn in the fireplace. It is night on the hills, in the garden that a hard winter has laid bare, in those discordant whimperings that announce the supper hour and a mother’s kiss in the warm, white bed. It is night for Bolaffio’s painted figures, two seated on a bench (they talk of politics), for that immense magnolia behind them, for a little girl who flies across a road, jumping rope. Once it was my picture; it lit up my whole house. A friend, Copyrighted Material 480 Varie l’ho ritrovato nella tua, che buono l’hai salvo al cieco disamore. E sono —penso—vent’anni che passò Bolaffio. Si fa notte negli occhi di mia figlia e in quelli della donna bruna. Ai miei scende, e non è dolore, umido un velo. È tardi. Affronto lietamente il gelo di fuori. Ho in cuore di una vita il canto, dove il sangue fu sangue, il pianto pianto. Italia l’avvertiva appena. Antico resiste, come quercia, allo sfacelo. Copyrighted Material Miscellany 481 I found it again in yours, who rightly saved it from blind unlove. And it’s been twenty years, I think, since Bolaffio died. It is night in my daughter’s eyes and in those of the dark-haired lady. Into mine a moist veil descends, not of pain. It’s late. Cheerfully I face the cold outdoors. I have the song in my heart of a life where the blood was blood, the tears, tears. Italy was hardly aware of it. Ancient, it resists decay, like an oak. Copyrighted Material 484 Mediterranee, 1945–1946 AMAI Amai trite parole che non uno osava. M’incantò la rima fiore amore, la più antica difficile del mondo. Amai la verità che giace al fondo, quasi un sogno obliato, che il dolore riscopre amica. Con paura il cuore le si accosta, che più non l’abbandona. Amo te che mi ascolti e la mia buona carta lasciata al fine del mio gioco. Copyrighted Material Mediterranean, 1945–1946 485 I LOVED I loved the worn words that no one else dared use. I was enchanted by the rhyme June moon, the oldest and most stubborn in the world. I loved the truth that lies in the depths, almost a forgotten dream, that pain rediscovers as a friend. With dread the heart approaches it and never after lets it go. I love you who listen to me, and the winning card left me at the end of my game. Copyrighted Material 486 Mediterranee, 1945–1946 MEDITERRANEA Penso un mare lontano, un porto, ascose vie di quel porto; quale un giorno v’ero, e qui oggi sono, che agli dèi le palme supplice levo, non punirmi vogliano di un’ultima vittoria che depreco (ma il cuore, per dolcezza, regge appena); penso cupa sirena —baci ebbrezza delirio—; penso Ulisse che si leva laggiù da un triste letto. Copyrighted Material Mediterranean, 1945–1946 487 MEDITERRANEA I think a far-off sea, a harbor, with its secret streets; I once was there, and am here today, and raise my palms in supplication to the gods, that they not punish me for a last victory that I disdain (but my heart, for sweetness, barely endures); I think a gloomy siren —kisses, intoxication, delirium—I think Ulysses who rises from a melancholy bed. Copyrighted Material 488 Mediterranee, 1945–1946 AMORE Ti dico addio quando ti cerco Amore, come il mio tempo e questo grigio vuole. Oh, in te era l’ombra della terra e il sole, e il cuore d’un fanciullo senza cuore. Copyrighted Material Mediterranean, 1945–1946 489 LOVE I say good-bye, Love, even as I hunt you, as my age and this gray hair will have it. Oh, in you was the shadow of earth and of sun, and the heart of a boy without heart. Copyrighted Material 490 Mediterranee, 1945–1946 EBBRI CANTI Ebbri canti si levano e bestemmie nell’osteria suburbana. Qui pure —penso—è Mediterraneo. E il mio pensiero all’azzurro s’inebbria di quel nome. Materna calma imprendibile è Roma. S’innamora la Grecia alle sue sponde come un’adolescenza. Oscura il mondo e lo rinnova la Giudea. Non altro a me vecchio sorride sotto il sole. Antico mare perduto... Pur vuole la Musa che da te nacque, ch’io dica di te, col buio alle porte, parole. Copyrighted Material Mediterranean, 1945–1946 491 DRUNKEN SONGS Drunken songs and curses rise up in the suburban tavern. Here, too, I think, is the Mediterranean. And my mind is drunk with the azure of that name. Rome is impregnable maternal calm. Greece falls in love on its shores like an adolescent. Judea darkens the world and renews it. Nothing else under the sun smiles on my old age. Ancient, lost sea . . . Yet the muse born of you wants me, with darkness at the doors, to speak of you. Copyrighted Material 504 Uccelli, 1948 L’ORNITOLOGO PIETOSO Raccolse un ornitologo pietoso un espulso dal nido. Come l’ebbe in mano vide ch’era un rosignuolo. In salvo lo portò con il timore gli mancasse per via. Gli fece, a un fondo di fiasco, un nido; ritrovò quel gramo l’imbeccata e il calore. Fu allevarlo cura non lieve, ed il dispendio certo di molte uova di formiche. E ai giorni sereni, ai primi gorgheggi, l’esperto in un boschetto libertà gli dava. «Più—diceva al perduto, e lo guardava a terra e in ramo cercarsi—il tuo grazie udrò sommesso.» E si sentì più solo. Copyrighted Material Birds, 1948 505 T H E C O M PA S S I O N AT E O R N I T H O L O G I S T A compassionate ornithologist picked up a chick expelled from the nest. As he held it in his hand he saw it was a nightingale. He carried it to safety, fearing it might die on the way. He built a nest for it on the bottom of a flask, where the pitiful thing found food and warmth. It wasn’t easy to care for, and cost him a fortune in ant eggs. And when the weather turned fine, at the first trills, the man of science set it free in a small grove of trees. ‘‘I will,’’ he said to the flown bird, as he watched it try itself on the ground and on a branch, ‘‘just barely hear your thanks.’’ And he felt himself more lonely. Copyrighted Material 506 Uccelli, 1948 I L FA N C I U L L O E L ’ AV E R L A S’innamorò un fanciullo d’un’averla. Vago del nuovo—interessate udiva di lei, dal cacciatore, meraviglie— quante promesse fece per averla! L’ebbe; e all’istante l’obliò. La trista, nella sua gabbia alla finestra appesa, piangeva sola e in silenzio, del cielo lontano irraggiungibile alla vista. Si ricordò di lei solo quel giorno che, per noia o malvagio animo, volle stringerla in pugno. La quasi rapace gli fece male e s’involò. Quel giorno, per quel male l’amò senza ritorno. Copyrighted Material Birds, 1948 507 T H E B OY A N D T H E S H R I K E A boy fell in love with a shrike. Eager to learn of her—he heard interesting things from the hunter, marvels— how many promises he made to possess her! He got her; and promptly forgot her. The sad bird in her cage at the window, wept alone in silence for the distant, unattainable sky she could not see. He only recalled her on that day when, out of boredom or an ugly mood, he squeezed her in his fist. The almost wild bird struck at him and flew away. On that day, for that wound, he loved her hopelessly. Copyrighted Material 508 Uccelli, 1948 PA S S E R I Saltellano sui tetti passeri cinguettanti. Due si rubano di becco il pane che ai leggeri sbricioli, che carpire s’illudono al balcone. Vanno a stormi a dormire... Uccelli sono: nella Natura la sublimazione del rettile. Copyrighted Material Birds, 1948 509 S PA R R O W S They hop across the roofs, cheeping sparrows. Two of them do battle with their beaks, hoping to snatch a few breadcrumbs on the balcony. They go off in a flock to sleep . . . They’re birds, the sublimation in Nature of the reptile. Copyrighted Material 510 Uccelli, 1948 MERLO Esisteva quel mondo al quale in sogno ritorno ancora; che in sogno mi scuote? Certo esisteva. E n’erano gran parte mia madre e un merlo. Lei vedo appena. Più risalta il nero e il giallo di chi lieto salutava col suo canto (era questo il mio pensiero) me, che l’udivo dalla via. Mia madre sedeva, stanca, in cucina. Tritava a lui solo (era questo il suo pensiero) e alla mia cena la carne. Nessuna vista o rumore così lo eccitava. Tra un fanciullo ingabbiato e un insettivoro, che i vermetti carpiva alla sua mano, in quella casa, in quel mondo lontano, c’era un amore. C’era anche un equivoco. Copyrighted Material Birds, 1948 511 BLACKBIRD Did that world exist to which in dream I still return, that in dream so moves me? It surely existed. And a big part of it were my mother and a blackbird. I can hardly see her. What stands out more are the black and yellow of him who cheerfully greeted me with his song (such was my thought) when I heard it from the street. My mother sat, weary, in the kitchen. She had ground only for him (this was his thought) the meat for my dinner. No other sight or sound so excited him. Between a cooped-up boy and an insect-eater who snatched the worms from his hand in that house, in that distant world, there was love. There was also a misunderstanding. Copyrighted Material 512 Uccelli, 1948 NIETZSCHE Intorno a una grandezza solitaria non volano gli uccelli, né quei vaghi gli fanno, accanto, il nido. Altro non odi che il silenzio, non vedi altro che l’aria. Copyrighted Material Birds, 1948 513 NIETZSCHE Around a solitary grandeur birds do not fly, nor do these bright creatures build their nest nearby. You hear nothing but silence, see nothing, only air.